Minnesota native Kalmoe named an Olympic rower

Megan Kalmoe, a Minneapolis native raised in St. Croix Falls, Wis., was named to the U.S. Olympic rowing team and will compete in the women's quadruple sculls at the London Games.

Kalmoe rowed in the double sculls in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and finished fifth. She won a silver medal in the quadruple sculls at the 2011 world rowing championships in Slovenia along with two of her Olympic teammates, Adrienne Martelli and Natalie Dell. Kara Kohler was named as the fourth member of the group for the Olympics.

Kalmoe, 28, has trained at the U.S. Rowing Training Center in Princeton, N.J., for the past several years. Her family lives in the Twin Cities, and her sister Molly was captain of the Gophers rowing team last season.

RACHEL BLOUNT

Pole vault mark topped

A pole vaulter from Buffalo topped the all-time Minnesota high school record with a vault of 15 feet, 9 inches last Saturday at the USA Track and Field Junior Olympics meet.

Mitch Valli, who will be a senior at Buffalo High School but was competing last weekend with the Zero Gravity vaulting club, cleared the height on his first try at the meet at Eagan High School. The vault tops the mark of 15 feet, 8 inches set by Macauley Spandl of Moorhead in 2010.

Valli credited a fun, relaxed atmosphere at meet, which had been delayed by rain earlier in the day. He and two champions from last month's state meet -- Lee Bares of Lakeville South and Grant Krieger of Blake -- had already qualified for the regional meet. After Valli and Bares cleared 15-4, breaking a 30-year-old meet record, they decided to set the bar at an inch above the state mark.

As Valli headed down the runway, he was accompanied by a dramatic accelerated clap from fans and onlookers.

"I was really focused, I knew what I had to do," Valli said Friday. His previous best was 15-4.

PAUL KLAUDA

U names associate AD

To cap his first official week as Gophers athletic director, Norwood Teague made an important hire Friday. The university announced David Benedict -- who worked under Teague at Virginia Commonwealth and has been serving as VCU's interim AD since Teague's departure -- will be the executive associate AD at Minnesota. Benedict, who like Teague has a background in fundraising, is expected to begin his new role July 9.

"David is a star," Teague said in a news release.

Benedict worked as an associate AD at Arizona State and Long Beach State. He has a bachelor's degree from Southern Utah, where he played football, and a master's in sports management from New Mexico Highlands.

Saints lose in 13

Cory Morales led off the top of the 13th inning with a solo homer off Chris Odegaard as the Sioux Falls Pheasants beat the St. Paul Saints 4-3 in an American Association game at Midway Stadium.